Portage Central’s softball team peppered Mattawan with 19 hits among the rain drops and the Division 1 No. 6-ranked Mustangs romped 14-1 in six innings in a SMAC game. The second game was rained out and is scheduled to be played on Friday. … weather permitting.

This game was a far cry from earlier in the season when the Wildcats (7-8) beat Central by one run.

‘’I know they come out playing hard and we had to have the same mentality,’’ senior pitcher Gina Verduzco said. ‘’We’ve been preparing for the past two days for this game, and when the opportunity came, we just really hit the ball hard.’’

The opportunities came right off the bat for the Mustangs (16-2). Taylor Snyder led off the game with a single and later scored Verduzco’s double.

Portage Central's Gina Verduzco throws a pitch during Thursday's SMAC game against Mattawan. The senior got the win and added three hits. (Paul Morgan | MLive)

‘’Mattawan’s pitcher (Larissa Groves) is very good and we had to adjust to her very quickly,’’ Verduzco, the winning pitcher, said.

What was probably the key hit in the game which really relaxed the Mustangs and opened things up came from Amber Foerster in the second inning. With Madyson Cole on base, Foerster bombed a home run over the center field fence for a 3-0 Mustangs lead in the second inning.

‘’Amber did a good job, waited for her pitch and took it the other way,’’ Verduzco said. ‘’That set the tone for the game.’’

Meanwhile, Verduzo was setting the tone on the mound. Mattawan leadoff hitter Kyla Nickrent singled and made it to third, but Verduzco got Kara Suwarsky to pop out to end the first. She put down the Wildcats in order in the second and third innings. In the meantime, Central put up another three runs in the third for a 6-0 lead.

‘’I just had to hit my spots and Tanner (catcher Tanner Kiessel) kept me calm behind the plate and focused,’’ Verduzco said. ‘’My dad always taught me no matter what the circumstances are, to keep the same mentality, no matter if it’s snow, rain, wind, whatever.’’

Added Central coach Tom Hamilton: ‘’Gina threw strikes and we made a lot of defensive plays. She sets the tone in that she comes to play every day and the others feed off that. And hitting is contagious.’’

That contagious part of the game kept up for the Mustangs when they scored three in the fourth, one in the fifth and four in the sixth to end it on the 10-run mercy rule.

‘’We’ve been hitting the ball well much of the season, but we didn’t against Mattawan the first time and we talked to the kids about that,’’ Hamilton said. ‘’We’re trying to be aggressive at the plate, but it doesn’t work all the time.’’

It was a team effort at the plate. Kiessel had four singles and three RBIs, Amber Foerster had three RBIs and her sister, Lea, had single and a double.

This type of hitting is new even to a veteran coach like Hamilton. He was Central’s coach in 2010 and won four state titles at Portage Northern.

‘’In the years I’ve been in the game, I didn’t expect this,’’ he said. ‘’The bats are hotter and moving the mound back makes this less of a pitcher’s game.

‘’I’m astounded at how far the ball goes.’’

For Mattawan coach Alicia Smith, it was a matter of not being able to get a timely hit to turn the game around.

‘’We did have some opportunities, but we didn’t capitalize on them,’’ she said. ‘’A couple of hits and it’s a different score.

‘’It was one those games where nothing seems to go right and you are going to have games like that. I’m looking for how the kids respond tomorrow and I’m sure we will be fine.’’